Saturday 22 August 1663

Up by four o’clock to go with Sir W. Batten to Woolwich and Sir J. Minnes, which we did, though not before 6 or 7 by their laying a-bed. Our business was to survey the new wharf building there, in order to the giving more to him that do it (Mr. Randall) than contracted for, but I see no reason for it, though it be well done, yet no better than contracted to be. Here we eat and drank at the Clerke of the Cheques, and in taking water at the Tower gate, we drank a cup of strong water, which I did out of pure conscience to my health, and I think is not excepted by my oaths, but it is a thing I shall not do again, hoping to have no such occasion. After breakfast Mr. Castle and I walked to Greenwich, and in our way met some gypsys, who would needs tell me my fortune, and I suffered one of them, who told me many things common as others do, but bade me beware of a John and a Thomas, for they did seek to do me hurt, and that somebody should be with me this day se’nnight to borrow money of me, but I should lend him none. She got ninepence of me. And so I left them and to Greenwich and so to Deptford, where the two knights were come, and thence home by water, where I find my closet done at my office to my mind and work gone well on at home; and Ashwell gone abroad to her father, my wife having spoken plainly to her. After dinner to my office, getting my closet made clean and setting some papers in order, and so in the evening home and to bed. This day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newburne (of whom the nickname came up among us forarse Tom Newburne) is dead of eating cowcumbers, of which, the other day, I heard another, I think Sir Nicholas Crisp’s son.

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L&M transcribe and punctuate this sentence thus - "This day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newburne (of whom the nick-word came up among us for "Arise Tom Newburne") is dead of eating Cowcoumbers, of which the other day, I heard another, I think Sir Nich. Crisps son."

In 1699 John Evelyn will write about Cucumbers in *Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets* "...the _Pulp_ in Broth is greatly refreshing, and may be mingl’d in most _Sallets_, without the least damage, contrary to the common Opinion; it not being long, since _Cucumber_, however dress’d, was thought fit to be thrown away, being accounted little better than Poyson." http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/6688/#c6...

I thought maybe part of the problem with cucumbers was acute gastrointestinal "wind" -- but evidently the problem wasn't related to gastric distress; the Wikipedia article on cukes sez "English cucumbers....are (nearly) seedless, and are sometimes marketed as "Burpless," as the seeds give some people gas." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucumber

"...He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into phials, hermetically sealed and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers." [Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels - The Voyage to Laputa]

"we drank a cup of strong water, which I did out of pure conscience to my health, and I think is not excepted by my oaths, but [JUST IN CASE YOU'RE READING THIS, GOD] it is a thing I shall not do again, hoping to have no such occasion."

On the issue of cucumbers, I grew up in the (US) South, where some people still cut the ends off of a cucumber and then rub the cut ends over the skin of the cucumber before slicing it to "remove the poison." Superstitions die hard! Note, of course, that it would be easy to find out whether it mattered. But if the theory of cucumber poison was correct, you'd be poisoned! Sort of like hitting two sticks together when in the woods to keep the bears away. "Do you ever see any bears?" "No. See--it works!"

John Evelyn wrote: "Let them therefore be pared, and cut in thin Slices", but where I live it is said that, if you leave the peel on, the cucumber won't give you gas. Then again, nobody leaves the peel on any cucumber but an English cucumber, so that fits with the business about Burpless, seedless cucumbers. And I'm left wondering, just how many cucumbers did Newburne eat???

"bade me beware of a John and a Thomas, for they did seek to do me hurt"Haha! -- "John Thomas" is English slang for one's privy member, in case anyone didn't know. Whether it was in Sam's day i don't know, but it seems a peculiarly apt warning.

A fool and his money are easily parted. A few days ago, Sam was talking to a parrot, today to a gypsy: it costs him nine pence this time, otherwise he'll be dead to'marrow'. (Would you like some pegs for your flies sir?) I wonder how Sam would deal with the 6pm cold telephone caller trying to sell him a new kitchen.

"Sam may someday get in trouble because of John Thomas"Excuse me? I resent the implication; John Thomas to my knowledge always being an affable, helpful bloke.

Shortly after I was born (in Cincinnati, Ohio), my parents were asked by English friends of theirs what they named their new child. "John Thomas." Pause. "Oh, how unfortunate." But I've never had reason to regret it.

Doesn't Sam mention eating pickles several times previous to this? Are 17th Century pickles made of something else, or does the pickling process remove the "poison?" On another note, if the rumors about Tom Newburne are true (we've previously heard others had died, only to find out later it was a false report), it likely had nothing to do with the fact that he ate cukes.

In my personal experience pickling in boiling brine with herbs and vinegar will often keep the cuces for three or four weeks, or longer, without fermentation -- providing the skins are removed first to get rid of the major bacteria. But if you are eating fresh cuces, unwashed, from a well manured bed who knows what you might be putting into the system at the same time.

re: pickeled or out of ones guord: Samuell did suffer a surfeit of Gherkins from the Baltic back here "...but by what I know not, unless it be by my late quantitys of Dantzic-girkins that I have eaten..."http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1663/02/09/Preparation can cause problems too, and there be those that have allegies, that create serious problems, I did have a minor series of allegies relating to Garden Veggies.Some mouth to rectum systems have problems processing unknown foods.

I wonder if Pepys is a more hard-headed businessman than his superiors. I get the feeling that they would have been happy to pay a bonus to Mr Randall for doing an excellent job, but Pepys is saying that that's only what he was contracted to do.

Presumably Mr Randall was escorting them over the whole building, putting them under a bit of salesmanship and pressure and Pepys is resisting it.

So in answer to alanB's speculation, I think he would have no trouble in repulsing cold callers (unless they were selling brand new electronic gizmos, perhaps).

Would it be good practice to pay an extra amount to a Contractor who has done a good job for them?

Glyn: excellent point. Pepys et al have no problem accepting gratuities for doing what they're already being paid to do, yet Sam doesn't want to pay Randall in exactly the same circumstances. You'd think the money was coming out of Sam's own pocket.

Am I alone in noting a real toughening up and maturing of Pepys over the past 18 months as he has had to deal first with the Brampton matters and also tackling the various dockyard and supply problems. To me there seems to be a decided change in tone and character from the entries of 1659/60.

Batten and Minnes as old and experienced might be more used to, and more accepting of, the ways of the world and human nature.

You are correct M.R. Some people grow because they have learnt to think in order to solve a problem [that be Samuell], and can solve problems that be new, others just apply known remedies,[ fine most of the time], which suit the leaders until the result is disaster then have to seek out those that can step outside the box.This is a period of time for a new understanding of rules of running an organisation. They could not just put back the old royalists in total,put in charge a few kissing cozens [they tried], but had to use those despicable Roundheads that could get the job done.That was Charle's saving grace, the country wanted stability, hated the Militias running around terrorising nice Royalists, but was wise enough to employ many of his nemesises [mallable Roundheads] , to work for the new regime with better rewards.The protesting work Ethic contrasted with the Catholic work ethic, and status of the betters and allowing the tradesmen [sorry merchants] to have a say in running of the country via controlling funds thru the elite parliament[ MPs only really represented the gents that had 20 quids worth of propery, not copy holders and renters and other layabouts] , Charles then took a bribe from his Buddy the Sun king, so disenfranchising the Merchant gang [MP and their pacmen]But it is great That the son of a Pricklouse, by hard work was influencing the art of government.

Absolutely, Michael. His growth of judgment and mastery of new tools of office, his focus and determination to work hard, his growing sense of success, and his well-earned self-confidence are very evident in the diary of the last years and a half,and quite absorbing to follow.

To triangulate between cucumbers and Ohio and mortality, I believe it was James Thurber who related the local wisdom, heard in his youth, that to eat cucumbers and drink buttermilk on a hot summer's day would lead to certain death. Or maybe you'd just wish you were.

"somebody should be with me this day se’nnight to borrow money of me, but I should lend him none. She got ninepence of me."He hasn't gotten all that tough, m'lads, unless when he wrote this down he was laughin'.

"Among Germanic peoples it was once normal to record the passage of time by the number of nights rather than days....It’s a quirk of the language that fortnight has survived as standard British English (though not American) while sennight is now defunct. It did last into the twentieth century in some areas as a dialect term, though eventually driven out by competition with the shorter week." http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-sen...

Some of us Americans, who are children of the night, use "fortnight" (albeit not "se'enniight").

OED: "The spelling cowcumber prevailed in the 17th and beg. of 18th c.; its associated pronunciation [COW-cumber] was still that recognized by Walker; but Smart 1836 says ‘no well-taught person, except of the old school, now says cow-cumber.. although any other pronunciation.. would have been pedantic some thirty years ago’."

I belatedly thought of the British poet William Cowper (1731-1800, author of "The Castaway") whose name I did not recognize when I first heard it said out loud (he doesn't get much of a look-in these days), inasmuch as who would expect it to be pronounced "Cooper"?